Lilly's Torment [Beyond the Veil 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Honor James

  Lilly loved when Ax bit into her neck, he knew that. She screamed as she came. Her orgasm rolled out of her and into both men. She came in a blinding flash of need and hunger. “Please,” she begged and opened her eyes to Gavriel, “Please,” she begged.

  His lips curled in a small smile, and a small burst of his powers slid through her body from the hand he pressed between her breasts. As earlier, it slid right down to her clit and lit her right up again. Biting his lip, Gavriel thrust into her a couple more times before stiffening and coming, her name a hoarse cry as he let loose.

  Lilly came again, her body reacting to the men’s shared pleasure, her body reacting to every sensation that they had as well. She went limp in their arms, trusting them to keep her up and had a silly grin on her face as she simply held there between them. “Mercy,” she said quietly.

  Both men just groaned, and all three of them fell over to their sides. Thankfully, it was all the same direction, otherwise that could have been awkward. And likely painful.

  * * * *

  Artaxias set a plate of Caesar salad, with grilled chicken, before her two hours later before sitting on a stool. After another couple rounds of wild and raunchy sex, they’d finally emerged and gone for food, at which point Ax had discovered just what she and Gav had been up to earlier in the day. He hadn’t said a single thing since they’d entered the kitchen, but if looks could kill, Gavriel should’ve been nothing more than a pile of ash!

  “The captain pulled the work permits for the new rugs and other flooring. It came from his office, but it’s his standard signature, not his personal one,” Ax told them. At Gav’s blank look, he explained further. “The symbol that sets her off was made into carpeting and floor tiles, and several distinct areas in the office were redone at some point over night. We only discovered it when she nearly went into one of her trances after complaining of a headache. That’s why we were home so early yesterday.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Gavriel looked to her and shook his head. “Who the fuck are these assholes?”

  “No clue, yet. As I was saying, all requisitions of this sort, flooring or replacing furniture or whatever, have to have the captain’s personal signature on it, which means it’s unique. Whoever did this used the stamp that his assistants use for standard letters, memos, and the like, shit that’s mass printed and sent out. Unfortunately, the company who did the installation only knew that they had eight hours to complete it, and everything was done on the phone.”

  Artaxias let out a frustrated sounding breath. “The requisition order, which we have in the labs being checked, was sent by a courier. The courier picked it up at the security desk just after shift change and no one from the previous shift, or the one that gave it to him, had any idea who put it there or when. We looked at the tapes and there’s a mass exodus of people at shift change, a lot of them going right past the desk. Any one of them could have dropped it there for the courier to pick up. The only thing on the envelope that the second shift noted was a taped-on message, written on a computer with the name of the courier company coming to pick it up.”

  “So that means that whoever did this is still out there,” Lilly whispered. “And how will we know if the flooring or whatever has been changed back? How will we know that this won’t happen again? I refuse to let these people take my life from me. Half of that life is work and you guys are the other half. So how do we proceed from here?”

  “I talked to the captain about it,” Ax told her, folding his arms over his chest. “He’s called every company in the city and alerted them to the fact that no orders were to be processed without speaking to him directly. And even if they did, they had to meet with him personally in his office during business hours for any sign-off and approval of flooring. He’s also alerted the security teams, all of them, that no one with any order to change anything is permitted to do any work without checking with him personally and getting his sign-off, in person.”

  He held up a hand when she went to speak. “It’s not a cure-all, but it’s what we can do for now. We need to find these assholes sooner than later. I happened to run into Byrne on my way out and we got to speaking.” He was talking about one of the other Luhpyne Agents that worked at the AEDA, of course. Good guy, odd sense of humor, and totally in love with his mate, who ignored his existence. ’Course, Briar had been hurt badly, so it wasn’t all that stunning she was ignoring him. Well, mostly not all that stunning.

  “It’s a stopgap and we all recognize it as one. So we are going on the offensive now. I got the captain’s permission on a few things. One, you won’t be going into the office without both of us with you.” He pointed to himself and Gavriel. “Two, you will be a full participant in hunting these assholes down. Three, it is our only task, and we can at any time ask for additional help. To that end, he offered up Byrne, Danel, and even Zhubin and Ansell when they aren’t on diaper duty. He also said I can grab any of the Vhampires I wanted to, so I talked to a couple of the guys and they are kosher with dropping everything to come hunting with us.”

  He got off the stool and headed for the fridge, coming back with a water. “On that note, Byrne seems to be working on something that may or may not have ties to what we’re on. I gave him copies of all the images we have of this mess of symbols and told him to keep an eye out for anything similar. I also warned him to keep it all away from you or I’d neuter him and Briar would have one less mate to worry about wanting to hump her leg.”

  “Good. Well whatever it takes to find this asshole.” Lilly laughed and shook her head. “If he…” She trailed off. “Wait. You mean like our M.E. Briar? She has a Luhpyne for a mate? Oh god.” Lilly had only heard about what happened and her heart broke for the woman. “Does she know that her mate is a Luhpyne? I mean, no offense or anything, because Byrne seems to be a nice enough sort, but he’s also very intense and she’s so traumatized. Will that even work?”

  “She knows he’s her mate, she also knows that Danel is her other mate. He’s Ahnjel, if you can’t recall.” He smiled at her. “Yeah, they are looking out for her and watching over her, but giving her a lot of space. She seems to be getting accustomed to them always lurking around. Either that or she doesn’t actually know they are lurking around. They are pretty good at pretending to be nothing but furniture. Hard to believe, I know, but it’s true. These are two you want on a stakeout with you. Totally manage to blend right into the background no matter where they are, if they want to, of course.”

  “Right, well, make sure that I start kicking all my furniture because I don’t think that I want one of them in my office without me knowing it. Especially since I more often than not attack you boys when we are between cases,” Lilly said with a grin. “Just sayin’ is all,” she teased.

  Chuckling at that, Gavriel shook his head. “They aren’t that good. And they also wouldn’t ever intrude on something like that, it goes against who we are. Unlike some humans, we’re not into voyeurism in any manner. Unless it’s our mate up to no good.”

  “And you won’t be going into the office anytime soon. We’ll handle everything from here to keep it as secure as possible. It’s to protect you, Lilly,” Ax said quietly. “Gav and I will need to go in on occasion, we still have other duties to attend, but this is our highest priority until we find this person or persons trying to control you.”

  “Okay, as long as you are sure.” She hated that she was being kept from her job, but she would do it because she didn’t want to put them into any more danger than they already were in. “Just know that if I didn’t love the two of you as much as I do, I would likely be tossing a righteous fit right now.”

  “You could still toss a fit if you want,” Gavriel said.

  “You are not helpful, Gavriel,” Artaxias told him. He had that whole exasperated thing going on in his tone of voice. “It won’t be for long, hopefully. We’ll figure out who is behind this and we’ll get you back to work, in the office, as soon as possible.”

  “I hope not.” Lill
y sighed as well and shook her head. “Well, whatever happens, happens for a reason, right? We will get this all figured out, and when we do, I will come back to work with you guys. Bossing you around is part of the contract.” That part she just brought up off the top of her head, laughing as she did so.

  “Uh, no,” they both said, shaking their heads at her. “Not that we don’t love you completely and fully, Lilly,” Gavriel said. “But no. You womenfolk are already too bossy, we don’t need even more of that,” he told her with a chuckle.

  She laughed at that and shook her head. “I am not bossy. I just simply tell you what I want when I want it. You would be lost if I didn’t tell you what I wanted when I wanted it,” she said quietly.

  “Hardly lost,” Ax said just as softly. He walked around behind her and rubbed his hands over her arms before settling them up on her shoulders with a squeeze. “Eat your salad, you need the calories. Tomorrow, after we’ve all had a long sleep, we will come up with a plan to hunt these bastards down and make them pay for what they’ve done. Preferably in a blood-filled, gory death.”

  “You always want a blood-filled, gory death, Ax,” Gav muttered, wrinkling up his nose.

  “True, but they hurt our mate and that, in my book, calls for the bloodiest of deaths I can dream up.”

  “Yeah, kinda what I’m worried about,” Gavriel muttered, sharing a look with her. “Not saying they don’t deserve to die horrifically, but I’d really like to cut down on my dry cleaning bill a little. Please?”

  “If it helps at all, I want a bloody death for them as well,” Lilly admitted. “I mean it. I truly and really do want to have them bloody for what they did to me. What they did to us.” They had turned her life upside down, as well as the lives of the men that she loved, and it pissed her off. “Never again. I want them bloody and very dead.”

  “They will be very dead when we are done. But first we must find them. Which means that you need to keep your strength up and eat. So, eat, and then we will get some rest. Since we, Gav and I, have time off, this is the perfect opportunity to start figuring this all out. Eat,” he said again. Leaning in, he wrapped his arms around her and squeezed. “We love you, Lilly. That is all that truly matters, remember that, sweetheart.”

  “I will,” she whispered and licked her lips.“I know that you love me and that is all that really matters. We will work this out, the three of us. We will get this all worked out. Right?”

  “Absolutely.” He nodded against her cheek. Nuzzling at her skin, he nipped her jaw. “Eat your meal so I can nibble on you later for my own,” he whispered in her ear. His chuckle sent a delighted shiver of need through her body.

  “That sounds good to me,” she said with a smile. “I really love the idea of you loving me as you both do. Even when you make me want to scream sometimes,” she teased. “That’s okay though, because you make me scream in the best of ways.”

  “We like it when you scream as well,” Gavriel said with a laugh. Reaching over, he took one of her hands in his and squeezed. “But he is right, you need to eat and keep up your energy levels. Otherwise you’re just kind of pathetic and limp, no oomph to your screams. Sad really.”

  “Yes, I don’t want to be all pathetic and limp with no oomph because then, really, what good is that? I’m serious, babe, we will make sure that I’m all fed and happy so that I can scream and scream lots for you two.”

  “Good, it’s much more fun when the neighbors think we’re murdering you.” He grinned. “And with the fact that Artaxias pretty much looks like an axe murderer most days…” He chuckled. Then swiftly ducked the smack Ax had aimed at his head.

  That had her laughing. She shook her head and smiled. “Well, all that I know is that I’m going to be there for the two of you from now until forever more. You are both mine. That’s all I have to say about things.” She was theirs and she would always be theirs, so that was all there was to that.

  “Ditto,” Gavriel said with a smile, his fingers tightening on hers slightly.

  “Same here,” Artaxias told her, his arms squeezing around her shoulders for a moment before loosening. Moving his hand, he covered both of theirs. “No matter what comes, no matter what life throws our way, we’re in it as a team. Until the end is nigh and all that mumbo jumbo.” He grinned at her and dropped a kiss on her lips.

  “I couldn’t ask for a better thing in life. I’m happy and the two of you are happy. That’s what matters. The three of us are a team and we are all happy. We will figure out just exactly what the hell is happening so that we can have our forever. Somehow and someway. Right?”

  Both men nodded, but Gavriel was the one who answered. “Right,” he said, his tone firm and his voice strong and without any doubt. One way or another, they would figure out everything, and the Gods help any who tried to stop them.

  THE END

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Born in the mid-seventies, Honor has always had a love for the written word. Whether she is reading a book from another author or writing a story of her own, she is always letting her mind expand and delve into possibilities. It all started off as scribbles for her, then a phase of poetry before she found her true calling in the erotic paranormal genre, where her imagination is the only limit.

  Since beginning her journey as a published author in 2011, Honor says she has learned a great deal about herself and writing. She believes that it’s a never-ending journey, the mind always wanting to learn and to grow. With that comes a better skill and smoothness to her writing she’s discovered and begun to enjoy more with each story she creates.

  Thankfully, as she puts it, she has a job that gives her plenty of opportunity to write whatever comes to mind with very few interruptions. Her biggest supporters are, as always, her family. Her two children and her husband are continuously providing her with laughter and joy, making the time she takes to write a little bit easier. Without them and their support she knows she wouldn’t be half the author she is today.

  For all titles by Honor James, please visit

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